Teacher of year uses fancy, fun for lessons

Posted: Monday, April 19, 1999

ANJETTA McQUEENAP Education Writer

WASHINGTON - Andrew Baumgartner, a kindergarten teacher from Georgia, comes up with just about anything to get the kids in his class to learn. He has served as host of a wedding for Sleeping Beauty, complete with limousine and cake, and a knighting ceremony for Jack after he killed the giant in the Beanstalk.

"Sometimes they may seem a bit off the wall," Baumgartner said of his ideas to bring the magic of reading to young minds, "but nothing tried is nothing gained."

That sense of adventure earned Baumgartner, 46, the honor of being named the 1999 national teacher of the year. He is the first Georgia winner of the national contest.

"Classes should be an adventure every day," he said. "They should be places where children discover . . . where failure is kept at bay."

Baumgartner was teaching at A. Brian Merry Elementary School, in Augusta, Ga., when he went on leave last year to tour the state in honor of his selection as Georgia's teacher of the year for 1998.

A teacher for 23 years, Baumgartner has battled his share of educational demons, even in his own family. He went through the pain of watching his son, diagnosed with multiple learning disabilities, fail at and eventually drop out of school in frustration.

"He is one of the students who fell between the cracks," he said. "When a school fails a child, it fails an entire family."

His son, 21, got his generalequivalency certificate and is enrolled in an Augusta technical school. The experience forced Baumgartner to re-evaluate his own teaching style.

"It turned me into the teacher who became the teacher of the year. I had to dig down deep and figure out who I was," Baumgartner said.

Baumgartner, who is from Savannah, Ga., was inspired to teach by his minister father.

"We were taught that we'd been so blessed by God that it was our duty to give something back. I did that by having a career in service," he said.